Pope Francis frees doves in St Peter's Square

Two doves owe their freedom, including a soaring flight over St. Peter's
Square, to Pope Francis.

Pope FrancisPhoto: AFP

Associated Press in Vatican City, and John Bingham

11:41AM BST 15 May 2013

As he toured the square in his open-topped popemobile at his Wednesday audience with the public, someone at the edge of the crowd thrust a white bird cage with two doves inside at him. Looking puzzled, his security detail took the cage and handed it to Francis.

Without hesitation, the Pope opened the cage door, thrust a hand inside, extracted one dove and sent it to fly over the square.

Francis struggled to remove the other bird, whose feathers got caught in the cage bars. It sat for a while on his hand, before it too flew off.

Doves appear as symbols of the Holy Spirit in much Catholic art. They also symbolise peace and divine guidance.

Yesterday it was claimed that the surprise election of Pope Francis came about because of a series of supernatural "signs".

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Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, who was himself widely tipped as a possible successor to Pope Benedict, said he had personally had two "strong signs" that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was "the chosen one" in the run up to vote.

He said only divine intervention could explain the speed with which the Argentine Cardinal - who did not feature on any of the main lists of likely candidates compiled by Vatican experts - was elected.

"It was a tremendous experience of the Holy Spirit," he said.

"We were driven by the Holy Spirit to this man – he was sitting in the last corner of the Sistine Chapel: This man he is the chosen one."

He added: "I received at least two strong signs: one I can tell, the other was in the Conclave I can't speak about – but real signs of the Lord giving me indication 'he is the one'."